1. Terminal Operation Package System (TOPS)

1.1 Overview

TOPS – the most advanced and flexible terminal management system available.

The functionality in the TOPS application is provided by two major components: The foundation system TOPO and the graphical planning and equipment control system TOPX. These components may be licensed together as a totally integrated real-time application, or licensed separately and integrated with the customer’s foundation application using APIs.

TOPS offers a full suite of terminal management capabilities, including operations optimization; yard management; vessel management; berth management; crane allocation; container handling equipment management; gates management; user security and access controls; reporting; and interface to financial systems, radio data terminals and GPS systems.

The system is totally integrated, and any activity performed by one user is immediately visible to all other authorized users, whether local or remote. This gives corporate customers the ability to have yard planning, berth planning and vessel planning done for their smaller terminals from a regional planning center. By this means, the smaller terminals can take advantage of skilled personnel at the large terminals and get the best possible productivity and performance out of their operations.

The system is completely real-time. It will not allow two planners to work with the same container, yet any number of planners can be working on the same vessel, yard or train. This differs substantially from other products, and eliminates possible confusion or duplication of efforts when multiple planners are involved.

The system is also very flexible in how the user sets up his/her work environment. Color schemes, work list elements, sort criteria, etc. may be set up by each user without overriding the overall preferences that the marine terminal administrator wishes to maintain.

TOPS gives you the tools you need to create a more productive terminal and the monitoring statistics that allow for continuous improvement.

TOPS is operational in marine and Intermodal terminals with annual TEU throughput ranging from 10,000 TEUs to unlimited TEUs. The target market includes:

• Marine Container Terminals
• Rail Container Terminals
• Intermodal Container Terminals
• Container Depots

1.2 Key Benefit

• Increased throughput and productivity
The extensive use of automation throughout the System leads to a more efficient terminal operation with less errors, a reduced requirement for manpower and results in a faster operation leading to a higher throughput of containers. The savings alone in time and manpower reduces a terminal’s costs and the increased throughput of containers leads to higher earnings.

• Improved customer service
TOPS provides an automatic billing system with a customer-billing component integrated with operational activities. Customer billing details are interfaced to corporate accounting and invoicing systems for revenue accrual and tracking.

• Reduced paperwork and manual effort
The system provides a standard message format to/from a commercial EDI translator for all EDI message types. The processing of large amounts of EDI data received from external data sources is fully automated and monitored by a minimum number of people. Fast validation enables large volumes of data to be processed accurately with all errors automatically highlighted. These errors are consolidated and can be quickly corrected thus avoiding lengthy delays caused by manual data entry and checking of data.

• Flexibility
TOPS runs on a single integrated database and permits replacing Oracle with any SQL-based Relational Database System. TOPS will continue to perform with responsiveness regardless of workload or system demand.

1.3 Feature Summary

This system has been specifically designed for container terminals and it incorporates all aspects of a terminal's operation from the gate, to the yard and vessel. It has automated yard and vessel planning, equipment control which optimizes the distribution of container moves in a terminal, it can be fully integrated with any third party sub-system or device and processes many forms of EDI messages.

This is a management system that has been shown to improve the efficiency of a terminal's operation, leading to higher productivity due to increased number of container moves resulting in a more profitable operation.

• Proven hi-tech State-of-the-Art solution for the Container Handling Industry:

• Realtime networked graphical container planning, monitoring and control system (TOPX).
• Equipment control with radio frequency mobile data terminal communications.
• Ship planning.
• Yard planning.
• EDI - EDIFACT.
• Vessel, gate, truck, rail operation, CFS and backend processing.
• Billing and management reporting.
• Internet access facilities.

For more information refer to the Product Summary Page.

1.4 Our Strengths

• Open architecture.
• Client/server environment – offers the best of “both worlds”, UNIX server and MS Window client.
• Server – Sun Microsystems, currently the world leader in JAVA technology.
• Server – Linux on various platforms, currently the world future technology.
• Client – Intel IBM compatible PC’s as workstations - Windows NT/2000/XP.
• Reliability – required for Mission Critical 24 hour operations.
• Future extendibility for future system expansions.
• Scalability – Allows for expanding operations.
• Connectivity – Can be connected with any peripheral devices for extra requirements.
• Integration – Unlimited system and network integration.
• Ease of Use – True GUI interface and easy to learn.
• Look and feel - can be customized to suit any user’s needs from screen colours to window manager.
• Functionality – All functions required for the terminal operations.
• RDBMS – Oracle or any other database.
• Languages – Supports any user's language supported by Windows O/S.
• Realtime networked architecture reduces network traffic and allows all users to access the same information at the same time.
• Realtime sharing of information reduces the response time allowing more time to be spent on the operation.
• No upload or download required between clients and servers at any time.
• Innovative application design has resulted in fewer mouse clicks to achieve greater results.
• Many years of industry experience has developed better exception handling solutions.

1.5 Future

• Continue enhancements and improving the operational efficiencies.
• Ready for the next generation of platform.
• Global connectivity.
• We listen to the industry...